Solar Eclipse
- 1900
A hard-fought early filmed match
Leicester Tigers face Plymouth in this early filmed rugby match, which took place 26 October 1901, at Leicester's Welford Road home. As is customary in early sporting films, only a small proportion of the match is captured, due to the technical limitations of the time. The match ended in a 3-3 draw.
James Bamforth was a pioneer British filmmaker, based in Holmfirth, Yorkshire. Having worked as a as a studio photographer and producer of magic lantern slides, he was well-placed to move into the film industry in 1898., His ever-entrepreneurial company, Bamforth & Co., later diversified into the production of saucy seaside postcards, which sustained it long after it lost its place in the film industry, proving a successful line of business into the 1990s.
It was a lucky filmmaker who managed to be on hand to capture real 'hard news', as in the disastrous launch of HMS Albion. The second Boer War, the biggest international story of the late-Victorian era, lured several cameramen to South Africa. Others responded to audience demand for moving pictures of such events by dramatising them for the camera.